Empire State of Mind
by Stephane Richer
Summary: But for now, they play basketball, one-on-one until they're ready to drop, jump until they fall gracefully, breathing in rhythm of the beep of the buses kneeling on the other side of the park.


Empire State of Mind

Disclaimer: Don't own Jay-Z and Alicia Keys's recording of "Empire State of Mind" or Fujimaki Tadatoshi's _Kuroko no Basuke_.

* * *

"Let's go to every court in the city," Aomine says, and it's a crazy idea but it makes total sense at the same time and Kagami can't help but let the grin cover his face. Everyone else just sighs and rolls their eyes and just lets them be because once they both have the same idea in their heads, especially one about basketball, it's impossible to get that idea out.

It's summer and there's nothing but heat and humidity, being drenched in sweat with the windows open and the fans full blast or the central AC and the window AC at the same time. It's all too much, even at night when the sun is replaced by street lights and neon signs, the one in the fish market that still says "FELIZ NAVIDAD" but why change now because there's less time between now and next Christmas than between last Christmas and now, or the one on the liquor store where the individual letters light up on-by-one except for the Q, which has been burned out for as long as anyone can remember. At night, the elementary school kids play basketball with one hoop draped over the top of a perpetually closed iron gate to a private alley/courtyard thing in front of a middle-income tenament until the ball bounces over and no one wants to climb over the gate to fetch it because what if they can't climb back? And then one daredevil volunteers, but her brother intervenes because no way in hell is his baby sister doing this thing which will totally get her in trouble, and they leave and go back to their parents and whine for some money for candy and soda, and then Aomine takes a shot from far away and Kagami takes one, and they're playing HORSE until one AM, with the stoners and old men playing chess and the guys from the 24-hour bodegas taking a smoke break there to cheer them on.

But they have to do the real courts, so they just walk until they find one, elementary school courtyard where the net is half-sawed off (why didn't they take the whole thing?) and kids stare at them through the chain link fence and poke their hands and noses through. They walk east on 86th street through the park and beyond, past flocks of fat tourists standing in the middle of the crosswalk taking pictures of trees and buildings while the drivers honk at them because right of way be damned, they're holding up traffic. The sidewalks get narrower and they pass rich people out walking their dogs in business suits e-mailing people on their smartphones. Eventually, the sidewalk widens and Aomine walks down dribbling, and gets into a jog. He plays keep-away from Kagami with the ball for a while before it gets boring because this is fun but playing with an actual hoop is better, but when they get to the water all they can do is marvel at what a long way down it is to the highway and longer still to the water, and the strange foreign land (Queens? Can that really be it?) on the other side like something out of some pretentious-as-fuck kid's instagram account, and sure enough there's a guy in those tight shorts just below his hips with a white wifebeater on so he can showcase his tatoo of a clock and one of a hummingbird, beard just too casually scruffy to look rough or natural in any way, holding out his iPhone (the latest model, what is it, 78 now?) over the railing while standing on his skateboard, and he's sure to drop the epensive gadget but it serves him right those damn hipsters. So it's back to basketball as the sunbathing women flip and pretend to read their books but stare at passing men's asses, Kagami and Aomine included, which makes Kagami mighty uncomfortable and Aomine, too, because Kagami is his his his 100% so he grabs his ass and won't take his arm off from around Kagami's shoulder even though they're sweaty from the heat and the basketball and the humidity will not let the sweat evaporate. They both stink of one another's sweat, so much that neither can smell anything, and Kagami's getting an awful sunburn on his shoulders (but strangely nowhere else; his face and neck and arms and legs are all just fine) so they take it to the nearest subway.

They ride back to the Bronx and get off and catch the bus to Manhattan, but today was a Yankee day game so they're caught up in traffic on the bridge for what seems like an hour, but they can't get off until after the bridge and it's agony sitting there because the air conditioner on this bus is malfunctioning and Aomine can't take his arm off of Kagami because the sweat has adhered it to Kagami's faded grey muscle shirt, but the weight is almost pleasant on Kagami's back as he leans forward.

They get Queens as done as it's going to get in a week and it's maybe 10:30 at night on the last day when they come back from a fast-food binge where Kagami spent all of his cash on burgers again (they seriously need to go to buffet places more often) through Aomine's neighborhood and it's exhausting, the contrast between the dark storefronts of the hair salons and grocery stores and money exchanges and the garish, cartoonish bars and restaurants and bodegas and liquor stores and newsstands, and they're getting headaches, both of them, and the weed they're almost swimming in coming off the end of smokers' joints and drifting out of the windows along with old merengue music is all too much. They pass a boy outside of a church, underneath the spotlight created by the light in the awning, dancing while his parents watch, talking with a group of their friends. He shows a kind of deference to Aomine and Kagami as they pass, giants with imposing presences, and they cast an amused eye toward his choreography.

Aomine sometimes hates that Kagami lives in Inwood because it's such a fucking pain to get there, and it would actually be better if he lived in lower Manhattan right along the 1 line because the buses don't run up that far and the subways are creaky and elevated and it makes him unreasonably nervous, and it's such a goddamn long walk to his apartment from the subway. On the other hand, the views from the bedroom are gorgeous on a foggy morning, the GWB looming out through the mist, and on a sunny day the light bounces off the water and off buildings in Jersey across the water and it's something nice to wake up to even if Kagami is shaking him awake earlier than he'd like because he just wants to sleep. It's better than simply having other people's windows, numerous and repetitive and boring, blocking out the sun so he can't really wake up to sunlight the way he used to before they built the giant high rise.

And they go to Staten Island, and that's where they abandon the idea because it's like a giant scary wilderness thing that they don't want to explore even with GPS because they're city kids and this is like a bizarro suburb thing, so they stay near the ferry and then get back on at night when it's less crowded, and the gentle motion and the smell of the harbor and the soft drizzle coming in off the water through the window lulls them to sleep on the yellow bucket seats, hand in hand with the basketball on their laps like a baby.

Besides, summer's ending soon and the rain will dry up and so will the leaves and the air and everything, and they'll go back to school and walk across bridges over highways where everyone ignores the no smoking sign and they'll flick the tabs off tall cans of iced tea and into the street, complain about only getting three free rides a day, grab McDonald's after practice together, text each other during class, hand in lap but face staring straight ahead at a teacher droning on and on about ohms and watts and meters per second squared. But for now, they play basketball, one-on-one until they're ready to drop, jump until they fall gracefully, breathing in rhythm of the beep of the buses kneeling on the other side of the park.

Aomine's hands work their way through the knots in Kagami's hair, tearing at the ends and making Kagami wince and bite at Aomine's arm. Aomine pulls on Kagami's necklace, and Kagami hisses as it digs into his neck. Aomine frowns and then reaches his head around and licks the back of Kagami's neck, making him shiver and jump. The timer goes off, and Kagami reluctantly stands. Why he's baking on such a hot day Aomine can't even begin to fathom, but then he tastes one of the cupcakes and they're delicious, even for his cooking, but they never get frosted because Aomine smears the frosting all over Kagami's face and licks it off.

They head downtown, and they've already got those damn back-to-school sale signs in the windows of every Duane Reade and Staples, but there's a sale at a bunch of shoe stores, too, and Kagami needs new boots so he drags Aomine around and bores him half to death with his decisions over whether he should go with a more expensive but better quality one or the cheaper one that's cheaply made, but he finally makes a choice. They pass MSG and laugh about its incoming demise.

"When I play for the Knicks, they're going to have a way better arena for me," Aomine says and Kagami scoffs.

"Please. They'll just extend the lease and you'll be stuck in that dump until maybe when you're like 38 when they move to the Meadowlands for a year because the new MSG will be in construction."

"Whatever. You're not good enough to play professionally, anyway."

"Are you fucking pulling my leg? I just beat you at one-on-one!"

"Only because I let you."

Kagami rolls his eyes.


End file.
